Filmscalpel
@filmscalpel.bsky.social
980 followers 340 following 74 posts
Audiovisual thoughts about audiovisual arts. Filmscalpel creates, collects and curates video essays at www.filmscalpel.com
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Reposted by Filmscalpel
adrianpmartin.bsky.social
Only 11 days before I begin teaching my first online film course: FRITZ LANG for the website. Registration details here, please consider signing up: cinejourneys.com/fritz-lang-i...
Fritz Lang: Inside the Machine – Online Class Details | CineJourneys
cinejourneys.com
filmscalpel.bsky.social
“We can now steal all your creative work. And share it with other thieves”. WeTransfer’s new terms of service are as brazen as they are despicable.

I just deleted my professional account.
6.3. License to WeTransfer. In order to allow us to operate, provide you with, and improve the Service and our technologies (and to develop new ones), we must obtain from you certain rights related to Content that is covered by intellectual property rights. You hereby grant us a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable license to use your Content for the purposes of operating, developing, commercializing, and improving the Service or new technologies or services, including to improve performance of machine learning models that enhance our content moderation process, in accordance with the Privacy & Cookie Policy. Such license includes the right to reproduce, distribute, modify, prepare derivative works based upon, broadcast, communicate to the public, publicly display, and perform Content. You will not be entitled to compensation for any use of Content by us under these Terms.
filmscalpel.bsky.social
I Know What You’ll Do This Summer.
arielavissar.bsky.social
🎬 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐕𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐂 𝐏𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐒! 🎬
This summer, we're diving into the New York Times' 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century list — and we want you to join us! We’re very interested to see what kinds of works might come out of a collective analysis of/reflection on the same curation of films...
filmscalpel.bsky.social
Implement a 100% tariff and ruin a movie.

Seventeen
jmittell.bsky.social
Implement a 100% tariff and ruin a movie.

Six Men and Two Babies
filmscalpel.bsky.social
How does Kevin Costner's 1991 Robin Hood remember Disney's 1973 version of the outlaw? How does that one, in turn, remember Errol Flynn's 1938 incarnation? Why is Ridley Scott's 2010 take on the character forgettable?
@jemsaunders1.bsky.social jogs her memory in this nostalgia-inducing video essay.
Hollywood does Sherwood: Reinforced Aesthetics of my Robin Hoods
Submission for Remakes and Memories (part of the Hollywood Memories project https://hollywood-memories.com/). Hollywood does Sherwood begins as an exploration…
vimeo.com
Reposted by Filmscalpel
arielavissar.bsky.social
Application deadline is March 28 - please share with your students and colleagues who might be interested!
colleenlaird.bsky.social
👀 Applications open for a graduate student summer workshop, June 9-15, on videographic criticism at Notre Dame University! Organized by @arielavissar.bsky.social, @barbarazecchi.bsky.social, Matthew Payne, and @colleenlaird.bsky.social . Deadline Mar 28 Please share!
sites.google.com/view/reframi...
Reframing the Argument
Videographic Criticism as Graduate Research Practice June 9-15, 2005
sites.google.com
filmscalpel.bsky.social
MALE GAZING is a radical reworking of REAR WINDOW, an audiovisual thought experiment and a piece of performative film criticism. What disappears when movies only look at the world through male eyes?
A shot of James Stewart in a wheelchair, taken from REAR WINDOW, featuring the title MALE GAZING.
filmscalpel.bsky.social
Friends Down Under: my video essay / short film MALE GAZING is playing at the ninth edition of the CAPRICORN FILM FESTIVAL in Yeppoon, Australia.
This Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th January it is part of CAPS EXPERIMENTAL, a short form video art selection.
More here: www.capricornfilmfestival.org
CAPS EXPerimental | Capricorn Film Festival 2025
Screening throughout the festival, a series of short form videos projects from international, Australian and Central Queensland artists and filmmakers which fit the narrative of experimental and visua...
www.capricornfilmfestival.org
filmscalpel.bsky.social
GETTY ABORTIONS explores Getty's stock image databases and finds that the photos used to illustrate abortion are very stereotypical. Franzis Kabisch uses her personal story to challenge the anonymity of those images.
#favoritevideoessaysof2024
More here:
www.filmscalpel.com/getty-aborti...
Screenshot from video essay GETTI MAGES showing a photo collage of women seen on their backs, unrecognizable, looking out a rainy window.
filmscalpel.bsky.social
MAKEOVER MOVIE by Sue Ding compiles a long list of objections to the trope of the makeover montage and substantiates them with an impressive array of film excerpts. She also enlisted six childhood friends to give a running commentary on her video essay - a great idea.
#favoritevideoessaysof2024
Makeover Movie
A pop culture essay film on the makeover movies we grew up loving—and all the ways they taught us that we needed to fix ourselves. Featuring clips from nearly…
vimeo.com
filmscalpel.bsky.social
HEIMATFILM fashions excerpts from 50 different films into a hilarious supercut. Marion Kellmann deftly combines recurring situations and motifs, and boils the German genre down to its narrative, thematic and iconographic essence.
#favoritevideoessaysof2024
More here:
www.filmscalpel.com/heimatfilm/
Screenshot from a heimatfilm showing a couple sitting in a mountain landscape, wearing traditional German clothing.
filmscalpel.bsky.social
MEANWHILE IN LOS SANTOS (DISSOCIATION NATION) is a mod for Grand Theft Auto V that shifts the focus to NPCs (non-player characters, the extras of the gaming world). Their interior monologues are a critique of GTA’s design.
#favoritevideoessaysof2024
More here:
www.filmscalpel.com/meanwhile-in...
Screenshot from GTA5 Mod "Meanwhile in Los Santos" showing an NPC standing still in a forlorn gas station.
filmscalpel.bsky.social
LIGHT HANDS is an excellent example of how to revitalise archival footage in a video essay. Historian Lily Ford delves into the Imperial War Museum’s collection of footage of women building airplanes during WWI. She engages with it in a creative and speculative manner.
#favoritevideoessaysof2024
Light Hands
This video essay is published in Movie: a Journal of Film Criticism, 11, where you can read more about it: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/scapvc/film/movie/contents/ford_light_hands._movie_issue11.pdf
vimeo.com
filmscalpel.bsky.social
THE RED GOD strings together footage of foxes recorded by a wildlife camera. Christine Rogers connects her videographic research to her Māori ancestry and her personal history, to decolonisation and the camera as imperial tool, to speciesism and the human/nonhuman divide.
#favoritevideoessaysof2024
The Red God
The foxes come and go, cohabitants of my backyard in Belfast. In this short essay film I explore how I might honour them as my Māori forebears honour their native…
vimeo.com
filmscalpel.bsky.social
DE SONT OF MJOEZIK is a live performance by Maria Zandvliet that translates videographic strategies to the stage. It turns the video essay into a fully embodied form of research. The result is an exhilarating study of fandom.
#favoritevideoessaysof2024

More here:
www.filmscalpel.com/de-sont-of-m...
Maria Zandvliet performing her live interpretation and analysis of The Sound of Music, using multiple projection screens.
filmscalpel.bsky.social
Can't make it to the MoMI in NY? Here's my contribution to their video essay screening series.
In THE APARTMENT I digitally removed all characters from Billy Wilder's classic. What remains of that film’s essence when it is reduced to its locale?
See for yourself: www.filmscalpel.com/the-apartment/
Interior shot of the apartment from Billy Wilder's The Apartment.
filmscalpel.bsky.social
Here's a great way to start 2025. The Museum of the Moving Image in New York is devoting a screening series to the video essay. From January 3 to 5, they will present four different programs.
My video essay THE APARTMENT is part of the second program (scheduled for Jan 4), called REMIXING NEW YORK.
Expanded Screens: The Video Essay – Museum of the Moving Image
This screening series presents a selection of video essays from across the 21st century that offer a spectrum of the medium’s possibilities, featuring authors who work in a self-defined space somewher...
movingimage.org
filmscalpel.bsky.social
On this day in 1986, Andrei Tarkovsky left us. He had spent only 54 years with us, but he sculpted that time into seven immortal feature films. Celebrate his legacy with this selection of ten video essays: filmscalpel.com/andrei-tarko...
Grainy photo of Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky
filmscalpel.bsky.social
Sight and Sound has published its annual poll of the year's most notable video essays.
@queline.bsky.social , @willwebbful.bsky.social, and @cydniiwilde.bsky.social tallied a total of 183 videos. Better start now if you plan to watch them all before the year ends. Or skip Christmas dinner.
The best video essays of 2024
From film festivals to TikTok, our annual poll showcases 183 unique video essays nominated by 47 international voters.
www.bfi.org.uk
filmscalpel.bsky.social
On this day in 1930, Jean-Luc Godard was born. He was both film icon and iconoclast, movie rebel and royalty. Defining this chameleonic French provocateur is hard, but these ten video essays give it a go, focusing on different aspects of his output: www.filmscalpel.com/godard
Jean-Luc Godard
filmscalpel.bsky.social
SUFFERING IN RHYTHM by Padraic Killeen (published in @intransition.bsky.social) tracks down examples of the ‘haunting melody’ trope that is common in film noir. The Coens' THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE makes an appearance in this insightful video essay.
Suffering In Rhythm: The 'Haunting Melody' in Film Noir
‘Suffering In Rhythm’ examines the recurrence of the trope of the ‘haunting melody’ in film noir. It is conceived as a poetic and instructional…
vimeo.com
filmscalpel.bsky.social
The Coens have tried their hand at wildly different genres, yet their filmography is very consistent. There's their distinctive visual style, but there are thematic constants as well. In this video essay, @timklobuchar.bsky.social charts the parallels between Fargo and No Country For Old Men.
Souls at Hazard: The Coens and Their Cops in Fargo and No Country for Old Men
A video essay that illustrates how the films parallel and diverge from each other in the portrayals of their law(wo)men. It certainly doesn't take a genius…
vimeo.com
filmscalpel.bsky.social
Go on the road with the Coen Brothers. This well-edited and thorough supercut by Enrique Perales explores the car and the road in the Coens' moviemaking, and in doing so brings out the particular brand of Americana that helps define their films.
The Coen Brothers: Waltz on the Road - Orignal Video Essay
Original Video Essay to explore the narrative in the Coen Brothers Style. The importance of the road in all their filmography let them explore the different emotions…
vimeo.com
filmscalpel.bsky.social
The shot/reverse shot is a basic staple of film language. But the Coen brothers put their own spin on it. This video essay by Every Frame a Painting dissects just what makes their shot/reverse shot distinctive.
Joel & Ethan Coen - Shot | Reverse Shot
How do you film a conversation? Most likely, you’re going to block the actors, set up the camera, and do shot/reverse shot. But where do you put the camera?…
vimeo.com